Revenue "diversification" is nice and easy hook for describing how media companies plan to meet their business challenge. But execution and management of these many streams is as critical to success as picking bets. We open the Publishing Insider summit by asking top publishing executive the "how" of revenue diversity. How are they picking, funding, managing and )dare we say) synergizing a fragmenting business model?

With most publishers chasing direct revenue, media are chasing finite personal subscription budgets. What is the pitch? How are publishers marketing their value when everyone has their hands out and when free media remains the dominant model? How are they experiencing and fighting churn and containing acquisition costs? Calculating LTV and making direct revenue more central to the business as a whole?

Apple is just the latest media fragmentation and redistribution scheme to dangle new revenue in front of media brands. Meanwhile, Facebook, Google and other platforms are trying to prove they really respect media's value to their platforms - no really this time. We ask several publishing executives how platform distribution adds up for them now? Where does it and doesn't it make sense in relation to a diversified revenue model?

Diversification as a Strategy - Nick Johnson, Head of Ad Sales, McClatchy
Subscription Sustainability - Tobias Bennett, Vice President, Revenue & Partnership, Local Media Consortium
Apple Minus? - Noah Keil, Senior Vice President, Strategic Insights & Growth, Group Nine Media

Margins are being crushed as the market gets cluttered with brand studios, distribution costs rise and advertiser interest may have peaked. As the branded content market matures, how are publishers adapting? What does the staff investment and talent mix look like now? How can we contain distribution costs? And how are publishers rethinking making these businesses a growing part of the revenue mix. sustainable?

By some accounts, programmatic advertising accounts for more ad revenue to many publishers than direct, often driven by the growth in private marketplaces. We explore how publishers are positioning and packaging their PMPs to compete with the oligopoly competition. How are they selling their audience, transparency, safety, viewability? What is resonating with advertisers most now and what is the growth path for the PMP?

Managing Branded Content Challenges - Scott Messer, SVP, Media, Leaf Group
Selling the PMP Proposition - Nick Ames, Director, Client Success, McClatchy
Increasing E-Commerce Revenue - Lynda Mann, VP of Commerce, DigitalTrends

Can a media company really build an agency that makes economic sense for itself but also serves the best interests of marketing clients? Belo has been building and buying aggressively to that end. Eric Myers maps the plan – to use its O&O data analytics company to drive insights, focus on attribution and performance modeling to offer a media agnostic agency for the right clients and a sustainable business for Belo.

From Amazon/Apple Channels to Snapchat/YouTube Originals to Pluto/Hulu/Roku, the next generation of big and small screen video promise to make TV stations of all of us. But publishers have been lured into costly video projects before? What is different now? With the deal structures? The revenue models and cost structures? The dependence on capricious distribution overlords?